Yeah, I'm playing RD atm and all the gamefaqs kids told me Edward sucked, except for a small niche who were Edward fanboys. I like him and he's tearing ass around the back yard on my data. Anyone else play with him?

He's the first sword fighter you start with. 

Edward ends really well since you have the opportunity to level him all the way through.  Sadly he's a bit of a lightweight early on which makes it tough.  If you you play smart, Edward will work will for you.  If you can't handle him early on, you may as well stick with Mia or Zihark.

Oh, right now, my Edward could destroy my Zihark. I'm chapter 7, he's alread ascended once. I musta got some good rolls. I also gave him the +2 to defense item, and befriended him to my axe wielder guy which gave him +8 evasion. He's tearing ass around the back yard. Only way I can describe it.

I ended up not using any swordsmen/women 'cause they all sucked. :P

At this point, I'm surviving on them. I plan on 20/20/20 Eddie at the end, cause that's my dream of destruction.

I am dead in love with Titania from the Gamecube game and I hear she is in this game. I can't wait. I love Titania irl, and I know she's fake, that's the messed up part. 

There really aren't any bad people in this game, save for a select few. Everybody is usable with a bit of effort.

I has the habilities to become the best swordman, has great rates...for what i know better rates than any swordman. The only hard are the first chapters since its appear in really low level and at the beggining is really fragile
Anyway, i still used Mia ;P~ I liked her from FE9

The gamefaqs kids told me Eddy has the best strength and hp, but lowest defense.

So, he's kind of a "living on the edge" type character. Really hard to hit, but dies in a couple of blows, endgame.

The only reason they said Eddy wasn't the best end game choice is "he was difficult to level on "hard" mode."

Either way, right now, he's ownage. 

The real nail against Edward is that Zihark has Earth affinity making him, in all fairness, the best of all swordsmen.  The dodge bonus from Earth affinity supports really is that awesome.

Don't listen to these people.
Obviously, people that say a character is bad because of this or that stat are just people that fail at SRPG.
I realized that most vocal people about FE games actually don't know how to use even basic tactic and strategy, and end up getting destroyed because they only know about brute force.
I've recently watched someone play RD on YouTube, the first chapter, and two things were obvious : he was playing on easy, thank god, as he was making stupid moves upon stupid moves. Even in normal made, he would have been wiped out.

Usually, when someone tells you a unit is shit because of some stat, that's because he fails at SRPG.
Like in PoR, where I heard how useless Mist is, yet I never got a problem leveling her.
I started RD on normal just to see, and I tried a casual style of play like in the video I saw : I was wiped out. Now, playing like I'm used to play, no difficulty at all.
RD is far less forgiving for tactic AND strategic errors, so I understand why people say it's so hard.
This is understandable, when you try to trade off using your brain for brute force.
I bet I will have no problem even with Micaiah units, but I haven't played enough to know yet.